"Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder"

"Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit
Disorder"
by Richard Louv

Review:

Neighborhood playgrounds devoid of laughing children on sunny
afternoons. Malls bursting at their seams, while only a scattering of
hikers and bikers ply the trails of local parks. Kids preferring to
play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 instead of actually skateboarding.

These are all signs of the time.

And these are all images that make Richard Louv cringe.

In his new book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from
Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin Books, 2005), Louv investigates the
changing landscape of our children's relationship with nature. He
laments how families are severing their umbilical to the outdoor
environment, and what effects such actions have on themselves, their
communities, and our global environment.

"For a new generation, nature is more abstraction than reality," Louv
exclaims. "Increasingly, nature is something to watch, to consume, to
wear - to ignore."

Louv shows how Americans have become dissociated from nature using a
raft of studies and statistics. Certain issues he addresses are ones
most parents are well aware of, such as child obesity, our culture's
infatuation with television, and the disappearance of recess from
elementary school curriculums. But he casts a wider net on the topic.
He shows how visitor numbers are down in major western national parks,
even when surrounding populations are exploding. He explains how the
average age of a Sierra Club member is now over 50 and rising. He leans
heavily on academia research, such as the 2002 British study showing
that eight-year-olds can now identify more Pokeman card characters than
native animals.

Paul, a fourth-grader that Louv interviewed for the book, perhaps
captures the sentiment most concisely: "I like to play indoors better,
'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

Louv spills a generous amount of ink in hypothesizing why this
detachment exists. He argues that over-scheduled parents have little
time to add outdoor activities to their to-do list, and that structured
team sports have taken the place of free-form play. He criticizes the
media and society for what he calls the bogeyman syndrome - often
irrational fears that parents use to keep their children indoors, such
as the threat of child-kidnappings, mosquito bites, snake bites, or bear
attacks.

Louv also blames governments and private landowners for swiping the
freedom of outdoor play from our kids. Over-regulated park strictures
often make it unlawful for kids to build tree forts, construct rock dams
across streams, or even walk dogs -- things their parents did in their
youth. In an extreme example, some parks are now banning kite-flying,
asserting it may confuse and distress birds. "Stay on the trails and
hands off" is too often the new park mantra. Further, some nervous
landowners, worried about lawsuits, may be exacerbating the problem by
no longer letting neighborhood kids fish their farm ponds or play in
their woods.

Even community associations cannot escape Louv's scorn. Noting that 47
million Americans now live in housing governed by community rules, Louv
argues that "most housing tracts, condos, and planned communities
constructed in the past two to three decades are controlled by strict
covenants that discourage or ban the kind of outdoor play many of us
enjoyed as children."

Louv also raises awareness over the large volume of environmental
warnings and concerns freighted upon the backs of today's youth through
school lessons and the media. "If we fill our classrooms with examples
of environmental abuse, we may be engendering a subtle form of
dissociation," he writes. "In our zest for making them aware of and
responsible for the world's problems, we cut our children off from the
roots. Lacking direct experience with nature, children begin to
associate it with fear and apocalypse, not joy and wonder.

"Children learn to cut themselves off from pain," he adds.
"Emotionally, they turn off."

The result of this dissociation between children and nature, according
to Louv, is a condition known as nature-deficit disorder. "This term is
by no means a medical diagnosis," he explains. "But it does offer a way
to think about the problem and the possibilities - for children, and for
the rest of us."

Louv argues that the effects of nature-deficit disorder are far
reaching. It may inhibit a child's creativity, fitness level,
spirituality, ability to socialize, and decision-making process (to name
just a few parameters). Spending time outdoors has been shown to reduce
or eliminate the effects of ADHD in children, taking the place of
Ritalin. Outdoor expeditions have been shown to be life-changing for
at-risk urban youth. Plus, playing outdoors is just plain fun.

But Louv also frets about the global aspect of our dissociation with the
outdoors, and how it will impact the future well-being of our planet.
"The health of the earth is at stake," he writes. "How the young
respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the
configurations and conditions of our cities, homes - our daily lives."

"Childhood experiences are significant precursors for adult activism on
behalf of the environment," he adds.

To remedy the problem, Louv calls for a nature-child reunion, and offers
solutions on how to revive the freedom of outdoor play. He argues for
the return of summer camps. Not computer camps or soccer camps or
inventor camps, but recreational venues where kids can canoe and hike
and shoot arrows and identify birds. He calls for tort reform,
particularly in laws that govern the association between children and
public and private land. And he wants to see park rangers focus more on
outdoor education than writing citations and collecting entrance fees.

Louv also wants to bring wilderness back to the people. He thinks we
should re-evaluate our current thought process on urban design. This
would involve incorporating more wilderness tracts into subdivisions,
turning vacant city lots into green space, and establishing urban farms
for outdoor education. He also thinks Americans should develop
"adventure playgrounds" - tracts of wilderness where kids can build
forts and dam creeks and swim in ponds and plant gardens without
breaking park rules.

Louv acknowledges that parents may resist finding time to reacquaint
their children with the outdoors, but argues why doing so is so
essential: "Here is another way of viewing the challenge: Nature as
antidote. Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of
spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life - these are
the rewards that await a family when it invites more nature into its
children's lives."

~ Reviewed by Michael Strzelecki